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Comment by aceperry | Hacker News Reader

"Rent control or not, the law of supply and demand still applies... or about whether rent control works. It doesn't work."

Without rent control, I'm pretty sure that a LOT more people would be pushed out of San Francisco. It seems to me that places like San Francisco, New York, and a few other places are not typical of what other areas experience. I know it's fashionable amongst the libertarian set to blame problems on regulation, but there is much more going on here than simple rent control.

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Yes, there is a lot more going on:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/

Rent control isn't the answer, though. More housing is.

The general response from economists seems to be that rent control suppresses growth in the supply of housing that could otherwise address the cost of housing.

Zoning suppresses growth in the supply of housing. Of course, that doesn't mean that zoning is bad by definition. Instead of artificially keeping building height low, you could mandate new buildings have at least so many stories.

San Francisco's problem seems to be that they can't possibly build enough housing to meet market demands without revising zoning restrictions in ways that would make current home owners angry.

You are right and I wasn't thinking things through.

Still, I submit that fears of extending rent control to new construction add to the problems caused by zoning.

Zoning also suppresses growth in the supply of housing, but so does rent control. People don't build apartment buildings out of altruism.

I agree with you. But what does that mean? Why is it inherently a bad thing? It could have a dramatic effect upon other areas like Oakland (revitalization) Or maybe it spreads further and wider than the Bay Area or even CA. If those folks are driven out it would change the character of San Francisco. Suddenly it'll be just wealthy people side by side with wealthy people and lose it's appeal. That in turn might take the heat out of the market and recreate more affordable neighborhoods that draw back in future people at lower income levels.

> Without rent control, I'm pretty sure that a LOT more people would be pushed out of San Francisco.

Are you saying you think fewer people would live in SF without rent control?

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